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Halo Is Dead – And the 4 Great Bullshits That Followed

The Halo movie project has been a total disaster from almost day one. Joke after joke has followed in its footsteps since its inception and today the final nail was put in its coffin (for now anyway, like a zombie it will return at some point in the not too distant future I’m sure).

Yup, from cancelled release dates, the hiring of a director who has never worked on any movie in any capacity in his life, more moved release dates, claiming they loved their script only to scrap it later and hire a totally different writer, refusing to budge on their own profit numbers in order to accommodate Fox and Universal, getting dumped by the studios, failing to find another studio… and now this. They’ve officially announced that all pre-production on Halo has been stopped and the film is on the shelf. The good folks at AICN give us this official press release from Wingnut Film (Peter Jacksons company) and Microsoft:

“As was previously confirmed, we deeply regret that both Universal and Fox did not choose to move forward with financing the Halo film under the original terms of the agreement. At this time Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, along with their partner, Microsoft, have mutually agreed to postpone making a feature film based on the Halo video game universe until we can fulfill the promise we made to millions of Halo fans throughout the world that we would settle for no less than bringing a first class film to the big screen. We are fully supportive of Director Neill Blomkamp’s vision of the film. Neill is a tremendously gifted filmmaker and his preliminary work on Halo is truly awe-inspiring. While it will undoubtedly take a little longer for Halo to reach the big screen, we are confident that the final feature film will be well worth the wait.”

So there you have it. It’s done. There is so much BULLSHIT coming from Bungie and Microsoft… and I’ll say it… Peter Jackson, that it makes the head spin. So here is the 4 great BULLSHITS coming from the Halo camp:

BULLSHIT #1 – BUNGIE REP SAYING THEY WANT PARTNERS WHO ARE MORE CONCERNED ABOUT THE ART OF THE FILM THAN THE “NUMBERS”

Remember this bullshit line last week that Bungie made when Fox and Universal pulled out? So here’s my question for the bullshiters: If you’re not concerned about “the numbers” yourself… then why didn’t you agree to Fox’s and Universal’s request to give them a bigger percentage to lessen their financial risk and lower your own percentage? Oh that’s right… BECAUSE YOU’RE CONCERNED ABOUT THE NUMBERS TOO! Hypocrites. BULLSHIT #2 – THEY BELIEVE IN NEIL BLOMKAMP’S VISION

This is such a joke. What vision? They did the script without Blomkamp’s input. They started pre-production without him. They did the freaking storyboards without him. So if you did the script, structured the story and even began work on the movie all before you even hired the guy… HOW THE HELL IS IT HIS VISION???? Nice attempt at spin.

BULLSHIT #3 – THEY BELIEVE IN THE PROJECT

This is a huge bullshit. If they believed in the project so much… then why don’t they PAY FOR THE DAMN THING THEMSELVES??? Microsoft has more money than Fox and Universal combined. Don’t believe the bullshit, if Microsoft actually believed Halo the movie could be a financial success, they would have put their own damn money up for it and production would already be well underway. But instead they wanted other people to pay for it who wouldn’t care about “the numbers”.

BULLSHIT #4 – “WE ARE ALREADY IN NEGOTIATIONS WITH OTHER STUDIOS”

Remember when they said this just last week to make it sound like other people were just waiting to step up to the plate to replace Fox and Universal? Yeah… well that was all bullshit too. They weren’t in negotiations… they were out BEGGING other studios to pick the project up. And as I predicted just last week, no one was stupid enough to bite.

Look, I love Indiana Jones… but I call bullshit when I see it. And everything we’ve heard from Lucas, Speilberg and Ford has been bullshit. Indiana Jones 4 ain’t ever getting made. I don’t hate Halo at all… as a matter of fact I love all sci-fi… but I call bullshit when I see it, and this whole Halo mess has been bullshit from day 1, and I’ve called it the whole way.

So now ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to take on the character of “arrogant jackass prick” and say something a few commentors have suggested I say since last week. Ready? Ahemmmm…..

I TOLD YOU SO!

Ok, that felt good.

I have no doubt Halo will return at some point. But maybe they’ll get it right and just do it as a full 3D animated kick ass action sci-fi flick. I think that would be better suited, but maybe not. It’s just a sugestion.